FMotW Critic's Choice: Film Score of 2005

EDITOR’S NOTE: The review below comes very
late to Film Music on the Web. We have a policy that if we do not receive
review copies we do not review soundtracks. Because four of our reviewers
selected the album as one of their three soundtrack albums of 2005, we felt
bound to carry a review at this time. We are indebted to Mark Walker for
providing it.

Since writing the above paragraph, we have
made a solid contact with Sony Classical in the UK now and we have received a
review copy of Star Wars – Episode III Revenge of the Sith. We look
forward with confidence to receiving further Sony Classical review copies

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
Music composed and conducted by
John Williams
Performed by London Symphony Orchestra
Also includes Bonus DVD Star Wars: A Musical Journey narrated by Ian McDiarmid
Available on Sony Classical (SK94220)
Running Time: 73:00
CrotchetAmazon UKAmazon US

It’s difficult to
overestimate the magnitude of John Williams’ achievement over the course of the
six Star Wars movies. It’s a truism that before Star Wars in
1977, the frankly operatic Golden Age style of film scoring had fallen into
abeyance, replaced by a sparser, more modern approach – as in much of Jerry
Goldsmith’s best work of the late-1960s – or the nakedly contemporary sound of,
say, Lalo Schifrin’s Dirty Harry.

Fortunately for us,
Charles Gerhardt’s Korngold records for RCA must have been on John Williams’
turntable in the mid-1970s, since no one who has heard them could miss the
influence Korngold’s music exerted on the original Star Wars – famously
so in the comparison of Williams’ main theme with Korngold’s for the 1942
melodrama Kings Row. But more importantly, Korngold’s scoring ethos –
his concept of a film score as ‘an opera without words’ – informs Williams’
whole approach to his own ‘space opera’.

That is to say,
Williams’ Star Wars scores are genuinely through-composed in exactly the
manner of grand opera. What this means is much more than just the basic idea of
adopting musical leitmotifs to depict specific characters, groups or
concepts (Luke, Leia, the Rebel Alliance, the Empire, the Force etc). Like
Puccini’s Tosca or Wagner’s Ring cycle, the music of Star Wars
forms a unified whole, architecturally conceived, within which specific themes
are subordinate to the grander plan and develop accordingly as the drama
progresses.

In the specific case of
Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, this Korngoldian idea of an ‘opera
without words’ is arguably perfected in a way that no other film score – either
Golden Age or present day – has accomplished before. Why? Because this score
links the whole impressive edifice together, at last making six individual
works into a single piece.

It’s worth looking
briefly at just one of the techniques Williams has used to achieve this:
melodic variation. Consider the following pairs:

Anakin’s theme – Darth Vader’s theme

Amidala’s theme – Princess Leia’s theme

Duel of the Fates – Battle of the Heroes

‘Anakin’s Betrayal’ theme – The Force theme

All are thematically
related to each other, the latter growing organically from the former according
to the established principles of musical composition. The fact that some of the
latter pieces were written decades before the former only makes this theme and
variation method even more interesting – since technically the new themes for
Episodes I-III are variations on the older ones for Episodes IV-VI; but in the
chronology of the drama, the situation is reversed: it is the new theme (say,
‘Amidala’s theme’) that is the ‘original’ Theme and the older theme (in this
case, ‘Princess Leia’s theme,) that has now become the Variation.

To my mind, nowhere is
this more subtly and effectively conceived than in the case of the cue described
on the Sith album as ‘Anakin’s Betrayal’ (track 4), in which the
pastoral optimism of the ‘Force theme’ is twisted and subverted into a dark
lament. Musically it’s a brilliant sleight-of-hand, but also a paradigm example
of Williams’ gifts as a dramatist: what could be more appropriate to accompany
the destruction of the Jedi than their own ‘Force theme’ transmuted from gold
into base metal?

It’s worth noting in
this context that the Sith soundtrack sequences cues out of film order,
according to Williams’ common practice when releasing albums. The composer’s
argument is that this produces a more satisfying listening experience away from
the screen, but in the case of the Star Wars saga, I must disagree. By
taking the music out of its intended running order, the development of the
principal themes, that is their careful reworking into new forms, is lost.

In the movie, for
example, there’s a noticeable change in mood as the music moves into the final
reels. Indeed, from the first sight of the volcanic planet Mustafar, Williams
begins the musical task of preparing us for the final confrontation by shifting
both the thematic content and the orchestration into darker, more aggressive
mode (track 10, ‘Anakin’s Dark Deeds’ with its splendidly grim fanfare as the
camera focuses on Anakin, standing alone after slaughtering the Separatists, a
single tear running down his cheek). When, at last, the ‘Battle of the Heroes’
erupts with all the bravura the LSO can muster, we’ve had at least ten minutes
of musical preamble; on the album, this build up is not apparent.

Although presented as a
standalone piece on the album, ‘Battle of the Fates’ is actually a companion to
‘Duel of the Fates’ from Episode I, and in the movie segues into that
piece as Yoda and Palpatine fight in the Senate. Again, this connection is not
explicitly made on the CD, which is a shame since, again, the sense of musical
architecture is lost.

Finally, the whole
comes full circle with straightforward reprises of Luke and Leia’s themes and
the Force theme itself, scored just as we heard it in Star Wars when
Luke stares pensively at the binary sunset (visually echoed by Owen and Beru
with baby Luke here). And just in case we hadn’t already got the idea, the End
Credits suite ties us back into Episode IV with ‘Leia’s theme’ and the
‘Throne Room’ music.

So, in sum, a
magnificent achievement as a single score, an even more marvellous piece of
musical construction when put in the context of the other five movies, Revenge
of the Sith immediately takes a place in the select canon of unarguably
great film music.

Mark Walker

5

Ian Lace adds:-

After Mark’s erudite
review of the Revenge of the Sith score and John Williams’s brilliant
through composition of the whole six-episodes of Star Wars, the thematic
patterns and development, and the overall architecture, I would just add a
few more words specifically about The Revenge of the Sith. All
tracks arrest the ear by virtue of the endlessly cleverly wrought harmonies and
colourful orchestrations. John Williams’s film music remains nonpareil.

Commencing with the
customary StarWars fanfares and Overture common to all six
films, new material soon grows organically, a march cold and cruel as the
Empire that is to triumph from the close of this third episode and a prelude to
the familiar march we hear in Episodes IV-VI. ‘Anakin’s Dream’ is
an impressive creation, lovely as the strings sing most tenderly of his love of
Padmé before, of course, the dreaming swirls horrifically downwards to bleak
nightmare as Anakin ‘foresees’ the death of his Princess. This bleak landscape
is echoed in the wailings and stark undertow of ‘Padmé’s Ruminations’ (The
music here is remarkably reminiscent of Vaughan Williams’s Sixth Symphony, one
of that composer’s most despondent and bleakest and incidentally about the
horrors of war). Extraordinary too, is the music of ‘Battle of the Heroes’, so powerful in its use of men’s voices and its novel rhythmic
patterns and propulsion; and I agree with Mark’s assessment of ‘Anakin’s
Betrayal’. The brooding, manifestly evil low string and woodwind figures
of ‘Palpatine’s Teachings’ lead, again, naturally to the crushing Empire March
so familiar in the later Episodes, filmed first. Another standout track
‘Anakin’s Dark Deeds’ illustrates just how well Williams penetrates to the
heart of the psychology of a scene; here starkly stated is the onset of
madness, and, consequently black cruelty, upon the vulnerable, gullible
Anakin. Also note how well Williams, without resorting to cheap
mickey-mousing, underscores the Frankenstein-like transformation of Anakin into
Darth Vader and once more the score leads naturally to the dread Vader music of
the original Star Wars. And how moving is the choral and
orchestral farewell to Padmé fulfilling her sad destiny in giving birth to the
twins who would ultimately triumph over the Empire in their future fight with
Vader. The 13-minute ‘A New Hope and End Credits’, bringing in all the
familiar themes, is beautifully performed and is a fitting golden nostalgic
conclusion to a most satisfying album.

I have to say I
was less impressed with the accompanying DVD. Granted that it affords the
opportunity to hear Williams’s music without the imposition of dialogue and
often ear-splitting sound effects, but the constant rapid change of clips, too
often of fast-moving battle sequences, presented too frequently in random and
non-logical order - jumping backwards and forwards through all six
episodes - soon becomes very disconcerting, distracting and wearing on the
senses. On the more positive side, the music often gave me insights I had
previously overlooked for instance the remarkable similarity of Princess Leia’s
theme to Rimsky Korsakov’s Scheherazade and how nice it was to be
thrilled once again by the concluding Elgar-like ‘Throne-Room’ music.

Not to be missed

Ian Lace

5

Gary Dalkin adds:-

Really there’s little
point me saying anything other than in an astonishing career this is one of
John Williams’ finest works. A triumphant finale to the six film sequence which
collectively stands unchallenged as the finest achievement in the history of
film music. Absolutely essential.